Week 2

---

It´s been a while since I added a blog entry. Access has been difficult and don´t know if it will make any difference, but I have been trying not to read or write english since the letters all sound different and I´ve got to get some pronunciation perfected.

A few of us took a short bus ride to the small community of Zunil to see the local women´s weaving, the local church and a bizzarre patron saint of no good. The women weave the most colorful and beautiful cloth...it´s amazing. The village is unbelievably polluted. The river is essentially the waste disposal. The women at the san simon ¨chapel¨swept up the trash and whipped out some gas to ignite a trash fire right in front of us.

Several of the group went to check out a sauna listed in the travel guides. A family has built some structures around some thermals and created a spa. It was a long uphill hike and provided some great views of the city. The sauna was tiny, but it made for some student bonding and seemed to help clear my head.

One evening we had a going away party for a real character from Greenland. It is amazing how many people have ¨checked out¨and are traveling the world. At our little party there were people from France, Germany, Denmark, Holland, Italy, Norway, England, Canada and really only a couple from US. One of the girls from Norway kept calling me Dad as I reminded her that smoking was not a good idea. We take nonsmoking for granted in the states now, but seems like smoking is still very popular elsewhere.

Spent Friday afternoon with Libardo´s aunt and uncle. I really enjoy my time with their family...they are special people. Roman took me to his bible study on the way back to town. Turned out to be three different buses before we arrived a tiny village out of town in a very tiny house. It was fun to see their passion, singing and enthusiasm in the midst of their varied situations.

The weekend was a great chance to get away from town and into the mountains of a coffee plantation. The original orner defaulted on a bunch of loans in the late 90´s when the price of coffee dropped. Brazil and Vietnam has really hurt the market. Vietnam has jumped into the coffee market because of all the land that was ¨cleared¨because of the agent orange use during the war. Noone want to analize the coffee there. In any event 40 families have been granted a financing plan to have a cooperative. The land owner left in the dark of night because of non payment to the families with several of the important machinery parts back in 2002. These families live on about four dollars a day. The process coffee, macodamia nuts, purified bottled water and producing bio'diesel in a converted water heater from restaurant grease. The are trying a program of dairy cows and converting you know what to methane gas to use in the kitchen. They started their hydoelectric system this last January. It charges batteries from a diverted stream. The same stream we used as a shower to get cleaned up. We saw rain for the first time and watched the volcano erupt about every hour. Back to Xela and wrote a composition in Espanol...not sure how it really reads as I only know present tense of all the verbs.

...too be continued the photos are taking so long to up load I´m exhausting my internet time limit.

---

Comments

[ckaighn]

Amazing
Steve, We miss you, but I am living vicariously through your travel blogs. Please don't stop...it's healing.

[Berb]

Week 2
I´m beginning to understand that I miss the impact you can have as an architect to provide quality buildings in our man made environment. I got frustrated treating office buildings as a commodity, rather than an opportunity to do a new and unique solution....still being complementary of course. Good commercial architecture is absent down here..at least so far on this trip. I wish they could build buildings that will be worth saving a 100 yrs from now, like the churches and gov´t buildings. This is an amazing experience and likely to have a lasting impact on my "world view." Hope all is going well and good luck

[DR]

What kind of coffee you been drinking???
So it has been two weeks plus and finally have the break I needed from the CC pace to actually read some of this......envious yes.......but have been wondering if all the travel adventure and language change is giving you somewhat of a culture shock on the inside??? Some of the stories are hilarious and others I wonder what kind of coffee you been drinking! Send more photos by paying more dinero for the web cafe time...........priceless. Have you found that diamond in the rough property yet?